Chesapeake Bay News

Between 2013 and 2014, underwater grass abundance in the Chesapeake Bay rose 27 percent, marking a 27,600-acre increase from the last decade’s low and an achievement of 41 percent of our 185,000-acre goal.

Underwater grasses offshore of Poplar Island, Md.

Scientists attribute this boost in bay grasses to the rapid expansion of widgeongrass in moderately salty waters, even in areas where vegetation has not been observed before. Scientists have also observed a modest recovery of eelgrass in very salty waters, where the hot summers of 2005 and 2010 led to dramatic diebacks.

“This data offer hope to those of us who have watched these grasses decline in our lifetime,” said Virginia Institute of Marine Science Professor Robert J. Orth in a media release. “As efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay continue, these plant populations can rapidly recover. We cannot give up on our efforts to improve water quality, because there are plants and animals that depend on us to make this happen.”

In 2014, there were an estimated 75,835 acres of underwater grasses in the Chesapeake Bay.

Underwater grass beds are critical to the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. They offer food to small invertebrates and migratory waterfowl; shelter young fish and blue crabs; and keep our waters clear and healthy by absorbing excess nutrients, trapping suspended sediment and slowing shoreline erosion. For these reasons, the Chesapeake Bay Program has committed to achieving and sustaining 185,000 acres of underwater grasses in the Bay, with a target of 90,000 acres by 2017 and 130,000 acres by 2025. “

“Every additional acre of underwater grasses measured in 2014 indicates improved water clarity and improved wildlife habitat,” said Maryland Department of Natural Resources Biologist and Submerged Aquatic Vegetation Workgroup Co-Chair Brooke Landry. “This [increase in underwater grasses] shows that restoration efforts are working and, if we stay the course, we could be successful in reaching our long-term goals. These data also highlight the importance and value of the Submerged Aquatic Vegetation monitoring program. Without it, measuring our progress towards a restored Bay would be infinitely more difficult, so I thank the Virginia Institute of Marine Science for providing such vital information.”

Underwater grass abundance is estimated through aerial surveys flown from late spring to early fall. Abundance is mapped in four different salinity zones, each of which is home to an underwater grass community that responds differently to strong storms, drought and other growing conditions.

Four partnerships in the Chesapeake Bay watershed will receive more than $150,000 through the Five Star and Urban Waters Restoration Program, which supports the restoration of urban rivers, wetlands and stream banks across the United States.

In the District of Columbia, the Earth Conservation Corps will join with several other partners to restore portions of the Anacostia River and to connect communities with hands-on urban birds programming.

In Baltimore, Outward Bound Baltimore will protect the city’s urban birds by restoring habitat, reducing collision hazards for birds and creating awareness of migratory species that travel through the city. The Living Classrooms Foundation at Masonville Cove will work with the Hispanic Access Foundation to engage local Hispanic church congregations in conservation activities focused around urban watershed issues and the Monarch butterfly.

The Alice Ferguson Foundation, Trash Free Maryland and other partners will trawl the surface of the Chesapeake Bay for samples of microplastics, to better understand and educate others about the level of plastic pollution in local waters.

The Five Star and Urban Waters Restoration Program began in 1999 as a partnership between the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Association of Counties and the Wildlife Habitat Council. In addition to the four projects inside the Bay watershed, the program will fund 60 projects in 28 other states.

The calm, mirror-like surface of Otsego Lake is the subject of history and legend. Nicknamed “Glimmerglass” by James Fenimore Cooper, the author describes the lake in his work The Deerslayer as “a bed of the pure mountain atmosphere compressed into a setting of hills and woods.” The narrow, finger-like lake runs nine miles from north to south, coming to a point at Cooperstown, New York, where it marks the start of the Susquehanna River. Hop into a boat and follow the current, and a winding, 464-mile journey downriver will eventually drop you in the Chesapeake Bay. At first glance, the lake’s tranquil surface may seem humble beginnings for a mighty river that churns billions of gallons of fresh water into the nation’s largest estuary each day. But Otsego is a flurry of activity, home to a rich diversity of critters, habitats and ecosystems.

Dr. Bill Harman, Director of the SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station in Cooperstown, N.Y., walks along the station's dock on Otsego Lake while an undergraduate parasitology class prepares to catch fish specimens on May 22, 2015. The Biological Field Station has grown to encompass 2,600 acres supporting laboratories, classrooms, offices, equipment and conserved land.

Alongside the shores of Otsego Lake sits the Biological Field Station, a laboratory that serves the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Oneonta, where researchers work year-round to study and preserve the lake. In 1967, the field station began as a 365-acre donation from the Clark Family Foundation. Now, the field station’s facilities— which include the main laboratory, a farm and boathouse, and various research sites and conserved lands—span more than 2,600 acres. Director Bill Harman, a professor of biology, has led the Biological Field Station for the entirety of its more than 40 year existence. As resident Otsego expert, Harman oversees the monitoring, research, training, workshops and field trips at the field station’s facilities.

John Montemarano, a sophomore biology major, casts a line on Otsego Lake while trying to catch fish with his classmates for a parasitology lab.

Hands-on learning opportunities are abundant across the waters, marshes and forests surrounding Otsego Lake. Field trips, summer internships and general research bring kindergarteners through post-graduates to the field station’s facilities. Students of SUNY Oneonta’s Master of Lake Management program—the first such program in North America—complete their studies at the Biological Field Station, sampling, monitoring and researching the waters of Otsego and other nearby lakes. Local residents and other visitors are also welcome to explore and can participate in lake monitoring alongside the field station’s scientists.

Bill Harman, who founded the Biological Field Station in 1968 and remains its Director, poses at the field station’s Thayer Boathouse overlooking Otsego Lake. The Biological Field Station was recently first in the country to offer a Master of Science degree in Lake Management.

Though located far from the Chesapeake Bay itself, Otsego Lake suffers from many of the same issues threatening the estuary, like nutrient pollution and a rise in invasive species. Zebra mussels and purple loosestrife—two infamous invasive species plaguing the watershed—have overtaken much of the lake and surrounding lands. Once a rich source of shad, herring and eels, downstream dams have blocked many of these fish from migrating to the lake. But Harman and his colleagues don’t see Otsego as a closed system. As they collect their data and monitor the lake, they are actively seeking solutions that could be applied across the region.

Harman holds a flip-flop found in Otsego Lake that has been covered with invasive zebra mussels in Cooperstown, N.Y., on May 22, 2015. The invasive mussel will establish itself on any hard submerged surface and exclude other species.

Preserved cisco specimens rest inside a jar at the SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station in Cooperstown, N.Y., on May 22, 2015. Cisco were once a dominant industry on the lake.

Nicole Pedisich, a senior biology major, retrieves largemouth bass from Moe Pond while seining with Ben Casscles, bottom right, a senior studying fisheries and aquaculture, and David Busby, a junior environmental science major, at the SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station in Cooperstown, N.Y., on May 22, 2015.

Casscles, left, and Busby pump the stomach contents of a largemouth bass collected from Moe Pond. The team observed this individual had eaten mostly macroinvertebrates.

Harman walks along a closed boardwalk at Goodyear Swamp Sanctuary. The Biological Field Station has had to close access to the swamp due to a lack of funds for maintenance.

Goodyear Swamp Sanctuary in Cooperstown, N.Y., offers five acres of conserved wetlands. The land was donated by Tom Goodyear, who also donated farmland for the site of the nearby Alice Busch Opera Theater in Cooperstown.

A snapping turtle rests just below the surface at Goodyear Swamp Sanctuary.

A leaf-eating beetle crawls on a heavily-devoured purple loosestrife plant at Goodyear Swamp Sanctuary. The non-native leaf beetle was successfully introduced to combat the invasive purple loosestrife, which has in turn experienced a severely diminished presence at Goodyear Swamp.

Biology seniors Jill Darpino, left, and Genna Schlicht, right, eat lunch with Assistant Professor Florian Reyda during a break from their parasitology field course at the Biological Field Station’s Upland Interpretive Center at Thayer Farm.

A pair of taxidermied passenger pigeons reside at Thayer Farm. Many specimens owned by SUNY Oneonta decorate the Biological Field Station’s facilities.

A student extracts a parasite from a fish specimen caught earlier in the day on Otsego Lake.

A disease-resistant Princeton elm tree, right, grows at the edge of Thayer Farm, which is actively farmed and studied. Thayer Farm's 256 acres were donated to the Biological Field Station by Rufus Thayer, a descendant of William Thayer, who established the farm around the start of the 1800s.

About Will Parson - Will is the Multimedia Specialist for the Chesapeake Bay Program. A native of Bakersfield, California, he acquired an interest in photojournalism while studying ecology and evolution at University of California, San Diego. He pursued stories about water and culture as a graduate student at Ohio University's School of Visual Communication, and as an intern at several newspapers in New England before landing in Maryland.

Today, the Chesapeake Executive Council announced the release of twenty-five management strategies outlining the Chesapeake Bay Program’s plans to meet the goals of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, advancing the restoration, conservation and protection of the Bay, its tributaries and the lands that surround them.

Nicholas DiPasquale, Director of the Chesapeake Bay Program, delivers the Chesapeake Bay Agreement management strategies to the Chesapeake Executive Council Chair, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, at the Chesapeake Bay Program 2015 Executive Council Meeting at the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., on July 23, 2015.

Members of the Executive Council—which represents the seven watershed jurisdictions, a tri-state legislative commission and federal agencies—met to review the state of the Bay Program and finalize the strategies at their annual meeting, held at the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.

In addition to announcing the strategies, the Executive Council passed two resolutions—first, endorsing the recommendations of the State Riparian Forest Buffer Task Force and committing to collaborative efforts that will increase the miles of forests on agricultural lands, and second, that the Bay Program hold a symposium on financing environmental restoration efforts. Members also agreed to two joint letters, one supporting programs to keep livestock out of streams and another supporting funding in the President’s 2016 budget for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which includes more than $33 million for the Rivers of the Chesapeake collaborative proposal.

“Our partnership to restore the Bay continues to move forward,” said Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, Executive Council Chair, in a release. “We recognize the significant challenges we face and look forward to meeting them head on to ensure the restoration of our ecologic and economic treasure, the Chesapeake Bay.”

The Chesapeake Executive Council members and representatives pose during the annual Executive Council Meeting at the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., on July 23, 2015.

Each management strategy addresses one or more of the Watershed Agreement’s thirty-one measurable, time-bound outcomes that will help create a healthy watershed. They will reduce nutrient and sediment pollution; ensure our waters are free of the effects of toxic contaminants; sustain blue crabs, oysters and forage fish; restore wetlands, underwater grass beds and other habitats; conserve farmland and forests; foster engaged and diverse citizen stewards through increased public access and education; and increase the climate resiliency of the watershed’s resources, habitats and human communities.

L. Scott Lingamfelter, Chair of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, speaks during the 2015 Chesapeake Executive Council Meeting at the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., on July 23, 2015.

Considerable public input was sought and received which had a substantial impact on the content of the management strategies, representing a collaborative effort between Bay Program partners, academic institutions, local governments, non-governmental organizations, businesses and citizens. Stakeholders throughout the region participated in the development of the strategies and submitted hundreds of comments during the public review period. In the continued work toward accomplishing the goals of the Watershed Agreement, Bay Program partners are currently drafting two-year work plans that summarize the specific commitments, short-term actions and resources required for success.